1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector for a sheet-like connection member such as a flexible printed circuit or cable (FPC), a flexible flat cable (FFC) and so forth. All of these cables and circuit will be generally referred to as “FPC”.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional FPC connectors generally includes a housing defining a cavity opened to a front face thereof, a plurality of terminals loaded in the housing and extending into the cavity, and an actuator assembled to the housing and movable between an open position and a close position relative to the housing. The actuator generally has a tongue insertable into the cavity, which will carry the FPC disposed thereon into the cavity and then hold the FPC in contact with the terminals. The actuator usually further comprises a pair of side latches oppositely beside the tongue to engage with the housing for guiding the relative movement between the actuator and the housing and further for retaining the actuator on the housing at the closed position.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,004,156 discloses a flexible flat connector including a housing retaining a plurality of terminals therein and an actuator detachably assembled to the housing and movable between an open position and a closed position relative to the housing. The actuator has a pair of side latches each with an inwardly extending barb formed on a free end thereof. The side latches are guidingly and movably received in guide slots defined in opposite distal ends of the housing for guiding a relative movement between the actuator and the housing. A projection is formed in each guide slot for engaging with the barb of the corresponding side latch to retain the actuator at the closed position. However, as the guide slots are sidewardly opened and there is no stopper to prevent the side latch from the sidewardly tilting, once a push/pull force deflected from the push/pull direction is put to move the actuator by an unintentional and improper operation, it will cause the actuator to laterally tilt. For example, when the actuator is pulled forwardly from the closed position to the open position, it may occurs that one of the barbs of the latches is pulled over the projection in the guide slot but the other is still remained behind the projection. That will cause the actuator to split at some week point thereof and then the actuator will be destroyed.
Therefore, an improved FPC connector is desired to overcome the disadvantages of the prior arts.